The Next Hurrah

Article III folds. But wait! Is that a sign of life in Article I?

by Kagro X

The story so far: CIA tortures terror suspects, videotapes it, tells 9/11 Commission tapes don't exist, tells courts tapes don't exist, tapes do exist, court orders government not to destroy tapes, government destroys tapes. And now?

Judge Won't Inquire Into CIA Tapes Case
AP NewsBreak: Judge Refuses to Investigate the Destruction of CIA Interrogation Videos
By MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON

A federal judge refused on Wednesday to delve into the destruction of CIA interrogation videos, saying there was no evidence the Bush administration violated a court order and the Justice Department deserved time to conduct its own investigation.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy was a victory for the Bush administration, which had urged the courts not to wade into a politically charged issue already being investigated by the Justice Department, CIA and Congress.

The CIA has acknowledged last month that in 2005 it destroyed videos of officers using tough interrogation methods while questioning two al-Qaida suspects. Lawyers for other terrorism suspects quickly asked Kennedy to hold hearings, saying the executive branch had proved itself unreliable and could not be trusted to investigate its own potential wrongdoing.

Kennedy disagreed, ruling that attorneys hadn't "presented anything to cause this court to question whether the Department of Justice will follow the facts wherever they may lead and live up to the assurances it made to this court."

Oh yeah! Of course! The DOJ is a fantastic self-policer! Absolutely!

A flash of grey flannel, a whiff of BenGay...

by Kagro X

When is an Internet-based, third party organizing effort a Very Serious Idea?

When David "Wild Man" Broder f*cking well tells you it is. That's when. You lowly moron.

Until plans for this meeting were disclosed, the most concrete public move toward any kind of independent candidacy was by Unity08, a group planning an online nominating convention to pick either an independent candidate or a ticket combining a Republican and a Democrat. The sponsors, an eclectic mix of consultants who have worked for candidates including Jimmy Carter (D) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), have not aligned with a specific prospect.

Now, some people with high-level political and governmental credentials are moving to put muscle behind the effort.

What meeting, you ask? Why, the Big Bipartisan Serious Person's Kumbaya Love-In for America, of course.

The George W. of the Wallace family speaks

by Kagro X

Just a quick hit here -- something I'd like to do a bit more of here at TNH, just to do my part to keep the conversation going.

Chris Wallace talked to The Politico, under the oh-so-convincing headline: Wallace: Dems are 'fools' to boycott Fox.

Here's what grabbed my eye (thanks to an assist from Oliver Griswold of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center):

Being the son of legendary newsman Mike Wallace, and in broadcast news for several decades, the Fox host has definitely been able to observe the mainstream media up close for quite some time.

But on his four-year anniversary this week, Wallace said there is something he’s discovered only since joining the Rupert Murdoch-owned network.

“I used to laugh and dismiss this talk about how we were — that there was a liberal bias in the mainstream media,” Wallace said. “But I have to say in the four years I’ve been at Fox, I’ve come to believe that there is a bias.”

Shorter Wallace: "I have to say in the five days I've been in this bank in Stockholm..."

You're still still not getting your oversight.

by Kagro X

Six months have passed since I told you that a year had passed since I told you you weren't getting your oversight.

And you're not. Because Rahm Emanuel says so:

House Democrats have postponed a vote until December on contempt resolutions against White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, delaying for now any constitutional showdown with the White House over the president’s power to resist congressional subpoenas.

Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) has been pushing for the contempt vote, arguing that the White House must be held accountable for ignoring subpoenas issued by his panel as part of the U.S. attorney firing scandal. Other top Democrats, including Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), have argued that the House should put off that fight while debates over Iraq funding and electronic eavesdropping dominate the floor. The contempt vote had been tentatively scheduled for Friday before Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) informed his colleagues that it was being delayed.

“[Emanuel] has been saying that this week is not the time to do this, that it will step on our message on Iraq and FISA,” said a top House Democratic leadership aide.

Only guess what? The message on Iraq and FISA and these subpoenas is all the same: George W. Bush thinks there are no Congressional checks and balances against his "inherent powers."

Once again, nobody for Attorney General.

by Kagro X

One by one, Senators are coming out to express their reservations about the nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General. From John McCain and Lindsey Graham (both of whom, to be frank, everyone should expect to roll over in the end), to John Kerry, to Bernie Sanders, Senators have expressed puzzlement and astonishment at Mukasey's inability to take a clear position on whether or not waterboarding is torture.

Still worse, if that's possible, is the fact that Mukasey remains unwilling to say definitively whether or not the President of the United States is bound by statutory law of any kind.

In a NYT op-ed published last week, Prof. Jeb Rubenfeld of Yale Law School identified an answer given by Mukasey that should prove far more troubling than the horrifying but considerably narrower answer he gave to the torture question:

AT his confirmation hearings last week, Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, was asked whether the president is required to obey federal statutes. Judge Mukasey replied, “That would have to depend on whether what goes outside the statute nonetheless lies within the authority of the president to defend the country.”

Nobody for Attorney General

by Kagro X

Michael Mukasey is certainly qualified to be Attorney General of the United States, if Alberto Gonzales sets any precedent. And while that may be the least convincing recommendation anyone can ever be given for the job, consider that Mukasey yesterday gave perhaps the least convincing answer to one of the most important questions asked of him -- by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)-- in his confirmation hearing:

What happened to the House FISA bill?

by Kagro X

The House was scheduled to take up the RESTORE Act today, in an effort to roll back the August FISA debacle. But as predicted last week, the bill fell victim to yet another Republican motion to recommit (see linked story for a backgrounder on the motion).

As TPM Election Central reported earlier, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced his intention to offer a motion to recommit the bill with instructions that it be amended "promptly" to include language that nothing in it:

"shall be construed to prohibit the intelligence community from conducting surveillance needed to prevent Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, or any other foreign terrorist organization...from attacking the United States or any United States person."

What does that mean? A couple things.

First, it means that Cantor has devised a vote that some strategists worry will be very tough for Democrats from marginal districts to resist. How, they fret, will these Democrats be able to explain voting no on an "amendment" that supposedly ensures that intelligence operatives won't be tied up in red tape when they need to prevent a terrorist attack?

Second, it means that if enough Democrats sweat this vote and go along with Republicans, the bill gets "recommitted" -- that is, it's sent back to committee.

Third, the choice of the "promptly" language means the bill gets delayed, and can't come to the floor for passage right away. Why is that?

If you love having people stare at you like you're from another planet, read on after the flip and find out. Then you too can be the person nobody will sit next to on day two of the legislative education conference.

What's that thing nature abhors, again?

by Kagro X

Via Crooks and Liars, there's video available of Sy Hersh's appearance on CNN's Late Edition today, in which he discusses his latest article for The New Yorker.

The gist of Hersh's comments on CNN? That changing the "mission" with regard to Iran makes an attack more palatable to the American public. Instead of the failed smoking gun/mushroom cloud line...

Hersh: You can also sell counter-terror, it’s much more logical. You can say to the American people, we’re only hitting these people that are trying to kill our boys and the coalition forces and so that seems to be more sensible, The White House think s they can actually pitch this, this would actually work…

By all rights, though, the "administration" shouldn't be able to get away with this one, either. Iranian "meddling" in Iraq was as foreseeable and as obvious and likely an outcome as the post-invasion looting and a sustained anti-occupation insurgency, both of which the war cheerleaders claim to have been unable to predict.

Purely from a force protection perspective, isn't it a spectacular failing to have our troops falling prey to Iranian interference at this stage of the game? And pretending it's a surprise?

Just another day in Republican Bizarro World.

Stuff that doesn't fit in soundbites

by Kagro X

This isn't meant to be a criticism of Hillary Clinton in particular. But it's going to end up that way, because she's the only one of the sitting Democratic Senators running for president who voted for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment the other day.

But I say that this isn't about her in particular because I think there are a lot of Democrats in Congress who make one of the component errors that I think she made in making her decision, even if they eventually come down in opposition to resolutions and amendments like this one.

What do I mean? Well, I just got a look at Senator Clinton's statement on her vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment that passed the Senate the other day, and this part grabbed me:

In February, after troubling reports about the possibility of military action against Iran, I took to the Senate Floor to warn that President Bush needs Congressional Authorization before attacking Iran. Specifically, I said it would be a mistake of historical proportion if the Administration thought that the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Iraq was a blank check for the use of force against Iran without further and explicit Congressional authorization. Nor should the President think that the 2001 resolution authorizing force after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, in any way, authorizes force against Iran. If the Administration believes that any use of force against Iran is necessary, the President must come to Congress to seek that authority. Nothing in this resolution changes that.

Von Spakovsky to slip through?

by Kagro X

It looks for all the world like former Justice Department evildoer Hans Von Spakovsky will slip through and land his share of Wingnut Welfare: a paycheck from the Federal Election Commission.

Von Spakovsky's nomination has been red-flagged for months, since revelations regarding his role in voter suppression schemes, approval of racially discriminatory redistricting schemes, and other transgressions came to light. Von Spakovsky's reward for permanently perverting the electoral system on behalf of the Bush "administration?" A cushy seat with the nation's elections watchdogs. Brilliantly played!

So, you already know where this is going, right? Senate Democrats aren't going to stop his nomination.

Why not?